Happy Thanksgiving!

I’m grateful today for my friends and family. 20 years ago, I decided I had put work ahead of everything. Ego, I guess. I wanted to shine, succeed, etc.

I recognized that my priorities were upside down. I changed course, and every day I’m grateful that I was flexible and honest enough with myself to do so. Today, I’m amazed at the difference.

I’m grateful I put service to other people into my daily life. It has transformed me. I remember the Thanksgiving where everything had to be perfect, and I made two teen-age boys stay up way too late polishing silver. And I remember the Thanksgiving when I joined friends in a feast for LA homeless. There wasn’t a potato bud in sight. Everything was homemade, from mounds of real potatoes and real gravy to over 50 beautifully browned turkeys. People lined up from all over downtown LA. The ambiance was intoxicating. There is simply NO gratitude better than watching someone try to top an overpiled plate with JUST a bit more. That’s a picture of real gratitude.

I’m grateful to know what matters now in life. I am grateful to know that 30% of people I meet in life like me immediately, 30% can’t stand me, and the rest aren’t interested enough to have an opinion. That’s perspective, and it’s given me freedom from trying to live life according to what others think.

I’m grateful to know that a habit of gratitude rewards one with new viewpoints and a startling awareness that most of us have problems of abundance, not the opposite.

I’m grateful to know that negativity is nothing more than a habit of fear. It feeds off of an overblown sense of entitlement and a true lack of love.

The antidote is to appreciate. And it’s readily available.

AnninCA on November 26, 2009 at 2:51 PM

Hey, here’s a fun gratitude exercise for you guys.

Take a piece of paper, put GOOD and Bad in columns.

Then simply record everything in your day.

Seriously, you’ll be surprised. Good vastly wins over Bad.

AnninCA on November 26, 2009 at 3:26 PM

The edges of our outside-the-bird stuffing got a tad browner than we like. Which column?
Just kidding, my dear. :-)

OmahaConservative on November 26, 2009 at 3:29 PM
The edges of our outside-the-bird stuffing got a tad browner than we like. Which column?
Just kidding, my dear. :-)

OmahaConservative on November 26, 2009 at 3:29 PM
The edges of our outside-the-bird stuffing got a tad browner than we like. Which column?
Just kidding, my dear. :-)

OmahaConservative on November 26, 2009 at 3:29 PM

I’m fairly methodical. I actually did this. Everytime someone cut me off in traffic, recorded. Ditto for everytime someone let me in.

I did this for 48 hours.

I became convinced that it’s true. I focused on the negative, not the positive.

The pros vastly outweighed the cons. What I remembered?

The cons.

I admitted to myself, I really am a bit of a spoiled brat. Good stuff is my due. Bad stuff? Unfair!

:)

Problem of abundance, as I posted earlier.

I think a lot of us probably are afflicted with that one.

AnninCA on November 26, 2009 at 3:42 PM

Even my heart-attack potatoes are a lesson in gratitude. I always wanted to have some dish I made that everyone requested. I guess that’s the dream of everyone who cooks.

But this dang thing? OMIGOSH!

It’s a disaster, healthwise. We’re talking butter, sour cream, cheese, fake potatoes……and the coup de etat’….

cornflakes.

Oh lordy, I cannot believe I’m going to be remembered for some cornflake-topped dish.

I can hard even stand to eat the dang things.

Be careful what you wish for, you may get it.

AnninCA on November 26, 2009 at 3:52 PM

If anybody is short on food, leave your address and I’ll overnight you some of the 45lb Turducken my bride put together.

You really prepare those? I see them on TV.

AnninCA on November 26, 2009 at 3:58 PM

Here’s my hope for the future. I want a president that actually eats the dang turkey offered.

*haha

I’m sooooooooo* done with the pardoning of turkeys. I lived next door to a turkey farm in my youth.

I believe that they are a simple blessing to us, for eating, as a result of their reality as neighbors.

:)

The person who actually says “Thank you,” and then prepares Tom for dinner gets my vote.

AnninCA on November 26, 2009 at 4:08 PM

Geese are really annoying also. I feed some Muscovy ducks that live in our pretend lakes out back but it has attracted Canadian Geese, they spend more time fighting then eating.

Cindy Munford on November 26, 2009 at 4:43 PM

My funniest Mid-western story. My husband’s aunt was a farmer in Illinois. She did so love that farm.

She offered us some of her duck.

Well, we Univ. of Iowa grad students bought a container and went out to pick up the duck.

She handed him some kind of gun. To me? It looked like something off TV. It was probably something fairly minor.

He had to shoot and pluck the duck.

Trust me. We never took her up on any other offer for food. *haha

BTW, she’s the only person I ever met in life who paid to have a squirrel transported to her yard.

She wanted squirrels, and they were avoiding her property, for some reason.

She actually paid for one.

AnninCA on November 26, 2009 at 5:19 PM